In the Heart of a Dying Wood
by time-stitch
Summary: This is the story of Rapunzel. But this time she isn't waiting to be rescued by a prince, and she hasn't lived with a witch for seventeen years without learning a thing or two. Locked in a tower she grows and falls in love on her own terms. Short Story.
1. Default Chapter

A.N: I'd originally put this under original fiction, but then I saw the fairytale category and changed it, and I realize it might not be very good, and I'm almost positive I didn't get all the grammar and spelling mistakes out, but I just wanted to put this out and see what people thought of it. If I get a good response I might fix it up a bit. If not, well it will slowly fade away from human memory, and will lie forever in the large space that the Internet covers, gathering dust and criticism.

In the Heart of a Dieing Wood

By time-stitch

_What is it, Rapunzel wondered, leaning out on the trellis of her tower,_ about knights that makes them think every girl who lives on her own wants rescuing?__

Well, she supposed she _did seem to be held prisoner in a colorless stone tower in the middle of a thorny jungle, and she wouldn't have minded getting away from it for a time. But what could possibly make them think that she needed their help for that? Were they as arrogant as that?_

Or maybe that was how all knights were, or for that matter, all humans. It wasn't as if she'd met anyone else to compare them to, except for Gretzel. And Gretzel, in her moment, could give even those knights a run for their money. 

But Gretzel had an excuse. She had, after all, been the most powerful sorceress in the world for the better of five centuries. Or so she said. Even after seventeen years of knowing the old witch there was only so much Rapunzel really knew about her.

What she did know was that her own mother had given her up for lettuce – lettuce!- and Gretzel had named her after it. _Named her after lettuce_! As if that hadn't been bad enough for her self esteem, she'd found out the only reason that Gretzel had taken her in was to practice her sorcery on, and then replaced her with a monkey a few years back. Why did she stay in this stuffy old tower, in the middle of a dying forest, then?

She glanced back at her room. There was her bed, with sheets of white satin, and her wardrobe filled with the most beautiful gowns. There was her bookshelf that replaced an old manuscript with a new story at request and her scrying mirror that allowed her to view any place, any person, throughout the land. There was her magical bowl with a never ending supply of food and drink, and there her spell book, though she was only at journeyman status yet. To become a true mage she needed training from a Master, and Gretzel was too busy frolicking around with her monkey to pay any attention to her forgotten, adopted daughter.  

_Just as well, or I might have ended up like her: old, alone and potentially mad, Rapunzel sighed, glancing at the poor fool who was trying to climb the rose vines that trailed up to her balcony. "Are you returned to your senses yet?" she called down to him._

The helmeted head peaked up at her. "Well it would be much easier if you just let me climb your hair!" he yelled back, hopping back on to the grass. "Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair! That I might climb the golden stair!"

It was laughable, this situation, and Rapunzel did laugh. Something she hadn't done for a long time. "What, pray tell, good sir, makes you think that letting down my hair would do you any good?"

The knight, barely old enough to have his sword and armor, looked up at her in surprise, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, "But my lady! It is known that you have the longest and finest hair of gold! And that it is the way that the evil witch who keeps you captive climbs up to converse with you."

Hair of gold? Rapunzel looked at her brunette, shoulder length locks and raised her eyebrows. It was true that her hair had been long once but after they grew longer then she was and had her dancing around the floor so as not to step on them, she had been forced to cut them off. As for Gretzel climbing her hair… "Where did you get a notion as ridiculous as that?"

"But lady! Everyone knows it! Does the hag not cast her magic on you?"

"The hag," Rapunzel glared at him, though he didn't notice because of the distance between them, "is the only mother I have ever known. She has never- not once!- even tried to climb my hair, and, if you must know, she abandoned me here two years ago because she got a new pet."

"Abandoned you?" the knight blanched, "but you- you are Rapunzel, the Lady of the Forest."

"No," she muttered, "I am Rapunzel, the Lady of the Lettuce."

She had not meant for him to hear but still the wind blew her words down.

"… of Lettuce?" he muttered, confused, and then shook his head as if it would rid him of the conflict in his head. "But I have come to rescue you! To save you from your haggard home, and this life of loneliness! To deliver you to the castle, where you shall wed the prince!"

"And what makes you think that I want to be rescued? Or marry your prince?" Rapunzel asked, icily.

"Everyone wants to be rescued!" the knight said, baffled. "And a princess must marry a prince!"

It was now Rapunzel's turn to be confused. "What, knight, is your name?"

The knight stared at her, not answering, with his mouth hanging open.

Rapunzel scowled, annoyed, "Have you forgotten it, or is it hard for you to pronounce?"

"Your hair is brown," he gulped.

"What?" she looked at him, and then noticed the sun was not overhead anymore, and that he had a clear view of her. "Yes, it is. Your name?"

"It's Davin, my Lady," the knight bowed, "Davin of Callghard."

"And your age?"

"I'll be nineteen, going on this coming spring."

"And what, Sir Davin of Callghard, would you say if I told you that I was not a princess?"

The knight took his helmet off, "Begging your pardon, my lady, but you are far too beautiful not to be one."

Rapunzel was struck dumb, not by his words but by his face. It was handsome, there was no doubt that it was much more so then any other knight that had come to "rescue" her. But it was not because he was handsome that she stared at him. It was those eyes. Where had she seen them before? And the cut of his face. Why did that spark a memory?

And then she remembered. She remembered what she had spent the past three years trying to forget. She remembered the triumph and the fierceness she had seen those eyes reflect. But it couldn't be! This- this _boy_ was too young!

She could not look at that face.

So she withdrew. She withdrew just as she had done all those years ago. Withdrew like she had not for any knight. Instead of arguing him into never returning again, getting rid of him so that she would never see him, as she had done with all the other knights who rode up to her tower, she withdrew.

As she closed the curtains and settled herself onto her chair she heard him call her.

"My lady! My Lady!" A pause. "Rapunzel?"

She smiled at his voice, as she would smile at a child who was trying to impress her with some skill that he thought was marvelous, and she, ordinary. But she could not look at that face again, not remember those eyes. They had been what confined her to this tower. It was not Gretzel that kept her captive, but a memory that she had convinced herself had been a dream. But as she thought of it now all her daylight doubts fled, and she remembered.

She had seen him for the very first time on the longest day in summer. He had been out hunting and found his way to the tower, guided by her singing. She sang often, in those days. The birds of the forest would come to her, to hear her voice, to sing along, and to smell her flowers, and she would sing for them. And so he had come. Her first rescuer. Her first prince.

He had been the first man she saw, and from what she knew about men she knew only through her books and what Gretzel had told her. He was beautiful, beyond all words, and he found her beautiful. And she had fallen in love with him. And she'd never expected him to feel the same way. Not him, being a prince and five years her elder. She had scarcely been fourteen at time.

"Who is it, who sings in that golden voice?" he had called up, from the back of his horse.

And she had peaked over her railing, almost afraid of this person who was talking to her. "Oh, hello!" she had answered, "Who are you?"

"I am Prince Gareth, my lady." And he bowed.

She had not thought it possible to be able to bow while sitting on a horse, and yet he made it look graceful.

That why she fell in love with him, really. Because he was so graceful and charming. And he had called her a lady!

"I am Lady Rapunzel," she'd replied, "And this is my tower and my forest."

"As a Lady, it would be courteous for you to invite me up," he'd said with an amiable smile.

"Oh but I can't! Gretzel wouldn't like it!"

He had asked her who Gretzel was and she told him. She had told him about her mother, and her name, and her training to be a mage. She had told him about her books, and her roses, and her birds. She had boasted to him of her hair, which had then been long, and at the time she had thought them beautiful. She had hung them down the tower for him to see, and he had almost been able to touch them.

And he came back. The next week, and the week after that, and then the one after that. Seven months went like this and every time he was more charming then before. He brought her gifts and sang her songs and paid her compliments, and Gretzel never knew. And then he asked her to run away with him.

She had been scared at the time, hadn't known what he meant. But he told her he loved her and she had agreed. He had brought her a rope made of silk cloths tied together, and thrown it up to her balcony. She tied it to the railing, kissed her roses goodbye, and climbed down.

He kissed her then, for the very first time, and she had been more certain than ever that she was in love with him, and he with her. So she sat behind him on the back of his horse as they rode towards the castle. She was home now. She had a palace. She had a prince. And not just any prince, but Prince Gareth. She had Gareth.

It was a day and then half more's ride to the palace, so they had to stop for the night. And it was then that she, sleeping on a thin blanket, with rocks jutting into her side, and hearing the calls of wild animals, realized she had no idea what she was doing. Did she really want to go to a castle? she wondered. To be displayed in front of strangers so they could judge whether she was a fit wife for their son? For a prince?

She sat up and saw him sitting by the fire. Gathering her courage she got up and sat down beside him.

"Gareth," she whispered, "do you think they'll like me?"

"Who?" he asked, glancing at her, giving her that same smile that he always had.

"Your family," she answered.

"Of course they will. You're beautiful."

He didn't even smile at her that time.

"Gareth, look at me," she demanded and he had, expectantly, and smiled again. And she'd looked into the sea-grey eyes, and seen pride. Not pride in her, for being brave enough to leave the only home she knew, but pride in himself for being able to convince her to do so. She hadn't found love.

"What if I told you that I didn't you want to be a princess?"

"A princess?" he looked mystified. "The princess of the tower? Of the forest?"

"Of your kingdom. That is what I'll be when I marry you isn't it?" she asked.

"Marry me?" and then he started laughing. At her. "I am not getting married to you."

"But I thought," she paused, confused at what she was hearing. "You said- you said you loved me."

"Oh my poor little Rapunzel," he smiled, half charmed, half scornful, "I do. I love you. That's why I'm taking you back to the castle with me. I'm not marrying you!"

"But if you love me- " she started.

"Court is not about love, Rapunzel," he told her condescendingly. "It's about politics and power, and I'm already engaged to the Princess of Acrocia."

"I don't think I want to live in a place dependant on power," Rapunzel said, standing up and smoothing off her skirt. "Take me home."

Gareth stood up too, with a cold, calculating glint in his eye. He gave her the smile she thought she loved, but now she feared it rather then being charmed by it. "I am taking you home," he finally said. 

"Not there. I want to go back to the tower!"

"And do what? Pretend to be a Lady again? Wait for some dashing prince to come and carry you off and marry you?," he asked, sardonically, "I am the only prince who will ever venture into these woods, and even if another does, what self respecting royal would marry the daughter of a peasant? An orphan raised by a witch?"

She had schooled herself not to cry, practicing every time that Gretzel verbally abused her when she didn't understand her lesson. She turned away to leave, saying firmly, "I'm going home."

But Gareth was older,faster and stronger. He grabbed her, so hard that it stung, and she, unused to physical pain caused by another felt the hidden tears come to her eyes. "Stop! You're hurting me! Please?" she pleaded. A single tear drop ran down her cheek.

It seemed to make him angry, and he yelled at her. Yelled things that would make the lowliest bar-worm cringe, that would make even Gretzel squirm. Had she been in love with this man? How could he be so horrible? How could she have thought there would be anything good outside her walls? 

It was what Gretzel always said, "You may feel like you're trapped here in this tower, girl, but you're actually protected. There's nothing out there but pain and suffering. You're one of the lucky ones."

So she did the only thing she could. She yelled a spell at him to make his hands burn, and when he released her, with a yell, she ran into the forest. And there she wandered that night, crying, mourning. When morning came, her birds led her home, where the silk rope still hung. She climbed to her room, and pulling up the rope threw it into her closet. Now she was safe. Now she was home. 

Gareth came back the next day and called her name. She came to the balcony for him, because she had once thought she loved him. 

"Rapunzel, I'm sorry!" he called.

Hearing that she had walked back inside. He had called all day and into the night, and fallen asleep outside. Gretzel came that night, thought the fireplace, as she always did, with her black hair flying around her, and her almost yellow skin in its wrinkles.

"Who is that?" she asked when she looked down the balcony. 

"Him?" Rapunzel shrugged at her teacher, "Some madman."

Gretzel had nodded, but had given her a knowing look with her piercing gold eyes.

Gretzel left when dawn came. And Gareth tried to climb her roses. The thorns bit through his hands, and he swore. It was then that he cursed her. Though he had no magical ability he cursed her. "Stay there, then!" he yelled, "Stay there for all eternity, and then grow into a crone just like your old witch and die in that tower, with no one to love you, and with no one for you to love!"

He left then.

She stopped singing.

The birds never came back.

And the forest started dying.

_And the forest is still dying, Rapunzel thought to herself, __but not because of me. Because it's an old forest and it was meant to die long ago. Gretzel kept it alive, when it should not have been alive, and now it is dying like it should, because all things grow old and die. Not as a curse, but because that is what life is._

She came to herself again. Her with her short hair, who people still thought beautiful. Standing she went to the balcony again. And there he was. Davin of Callghard.

He sat in front of a make shift fire, and he looked so much like Gareth then that she almost went back inside. 

"Sir Davin!" she called. He looked up at her.

"My lady!" he said, surprised, and, she saw when the light of the fire flickered to his face, hopeful.

"Can you tell me of the prince of the kingdom beyond the castle?"

"The prince? Well- er," he looked down sheepishly, "he's standing before you. Uh, my lady."

"Impossible! You are not Prince Gareth!" she accused him.

"No, my lady. Prince Gareth is my brother. But he, he passed away some two years back. How do you know of him, Rapunzel?" Davin asked, his curiosity making him momentarily forget his Court manners.

"Die?" she repeated stunned. "How?"

"It was birds."

"Birds?"

"He was returning from this forest, he came here often enough, and he was attacked by these birds. When we found him he was still alive, but bleeding too much, all over his face and his hands. He lost too much blood."

Rapunzel looked down at him, this prince, scarcely older then her. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Davin shrugged it off. "It's been years."

Yes, it had. It had been years. She made a decision then. Turning back to the room she had known for all her childhood, she pulled out a rope of silk out of the closet, and then returning outside secured it to her railing. Then, carefully she climbed down.

Turning she looked into a pair of startled sea green eyes, that were surprised, awed, and held something that, if fed and watered, could turn into love. She held out a hand to him. "I'm Rapunzel, and I have lived in this tower for seventeen years, and I think it's time to move on and let the forest die in peace."

Davin, at first speechless, took her hand and flashed a smile more kind and less arrogant than his brother's. "I'm Davin, and I'm honored to be the one who will escort the Lady Rapunzel to our castle."

As they made their way away from the stone tower that lay in the heart a dying wood, Rapunzel turned to Davin, "Do you have a horse?"

He winced, looking sheepish once again, "I did, but it threw me and ran away. We'll have to walk."

Rapunzel smiled. "Perfect."


	2. Thank You!

A.N: Wow! You guys are amazing! I honestly think that these reviews are the best ones I ever got!

Eclipsa: thank you so much! I try. ; )

Crystal Teardrop: I know… it's just that it was three in the morning and of I hadn't finished it then, I would never have opened the file.

Kaio: thank you!

Nosilla: I would but… but if you want to then you can. Mail me!

lee-gmail: what author doesn't love to hear that?: D

Lellida- No I haven't actually. Is it a fanfic or a book?

Denial- thank you! And you're welcome!

Does it matter- I hope you're feeling better now…and thank you!

Senna Wales- that's very sweet! Lol- royal clothing… No I haven't seen Into the Woods. Is it a movie or a tv program- I'll have to watch it soon. That's very deep- I mean the whole the wood is dieing because she's maturing- and very plausible too: it's more like her leaving behind her childhood means that she has lost the ability to "communicate" with the woods, and has to leave it behind too. I'll let you in on a secret- I had absolutely no deep thought behind it. It's how English teachers always want you to find the hidden meanings in the book. Don't they ever consider the writer wrote just for the heck of it? Okay- I'm going off track. Thanks for the review!

Josh- well I already talked to you. : )

Tiger Lily21- Thank you. You might be right, actually. Or maybe it just differs from version to version? I'll look it up.


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